Tuesday, July 12, 2005

12 July 2005 - Fact Check on "Independence Day"

In my Friday, 8 July blog I wrote a few production/consumption facts about the USA and France. I checked my "facts" against statistics compiled by the Wine Institute in California -- while I was close, I wasn't exactly correct, so here are the corrections.

Wine Production
I wrote that the USA was now 5th -- actually we're 4th. I wrote that France was 2nd -- they're actually 1st, ahead of Italy, then Spain, then the USA.

Wine Consumption
I wrote that the USA had moved up to 50th in the world, creeping up to about 10 liters /year per capita -- actually the USA has zoomed all the way to 36th as a wine consuming country, but at less than 9 liters/year per capita. France is actually 2nd to Luxembourg in consumption at about 60 liters/year per capita, down from 91L/year in 1980. It is also worth adding that France is not alone in declining wine consumption -- Italy, Portugal, Spain, the U.K., Chile and Argentina have also seen similarly precipitous drops in per-capita wine consumption. So, is the USA all alone as far as countries consuming more wine? Nope, Denmark has more than doubled its per-capita consumption since 1980, while Switzerland, the Netherlands, Uruguay and Australia have experienced more modest increases.

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